Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story
(on a postcard)

Nice Things Said AboutUsSam Lipsyte:
"Michael Kimball never ceases to astonish. He is a hero of
contemporary American literature."
Observer:
“Powerful and moving ... breathless”
El Mercurio:
“First, Camus showed us the human condition. Now Kimball
has.”
Time Out London:
“A deep love between an ageing husband and wife is given a
heartbreaking voice ... tender and poignant”
El País:“Haunting and awesome ... beautiful and
intense ... This is a novel from a great talent.”
El Placer de la Lectura:
“A monument to love”
The Glasgow Herald:
“Be warned: this book has the power to make
even the most hard-hearted of readers shed a tear. ...
Kimball has broken into new territory: Us is one
of the most graphic depictions of illness and loss I have
ever read.”
Letras Libres:
Michael Kimball "already delivers the
future of the novel ... [He is] one of the authentic
innovators in contemporary fiction."
Blake Butler:
“There are two books I can remember that ever made me
physically cry. There were the rape scenes in Saramago’s
Blindness, and there was nearly every chapter of
Michael Kimball’s [Us]. While the first hurt
because it was so brutal, Kimball’s was a softer kind of
invocation—as I read it in a bathtub, I could not shake the
feeling of being held, as if somehow the words had
interlaced my skin. This is the essence of the magic
Michael Kimball holds—his sentences come on so taut, so
right there, and yet somehow so calming, it’s as if you are
being visited by some lighted presence.”
El Razón:
“Bathed in tenderness ... touching and breathtaking ... one
of the most moving, heartbreaking, and sad novels of
contemporary American fiction. It is essential.”
Telegraph and Argus:
“This is the saddest book I have ever read and one of the
most beautiful ... One can’t help being aware of his grief
and the great love he feels for his dying wife. It will
make you cry and break your heart but this is one book you
must read.”

Adam Robinson has lived in a bunch of different cities, but that probably doesn’t matter. His childhood was not notable except for the fact that he often ate lunch in a bathroom stall during his junior year of high school and except for all of the God stuff that he grew up with. He went to a Christian college, but only because his brother, his almost Irish twin, did. The Christian college was awesome for Adam (though it must be noted that this word often accompanies descriptions of religious experiences) and it was there that he learned that life is really terrible unless everybody forgives each other. Adam continues to be a Christian in spite of the fact that Martin Luther consummated his marriage to Katherine von Bora in front of his friends (or, possibly, because of this fact; it isn’t clear). Said another way, Adam is a dark and sad Christian like St. Paul. Also, once, Adam hid out all night in a porta potty at an amusement park so that he could see some bands that he really wanted to see the next day. The next day, a family he kind of knew gave him a washcloth so he could take a shower. Now Adam works as a technology buyer for an asset management company, but that doesn’t really describe him. It isn’t who he is. He is a guitar player for Sweatpants and the publisher of Publishing Genius and a writer of poems and stories and songs, but he cannot be fully understood in these terms either. It is better to think of Adam in terms of the time he jumped out of a speeding boat (that he was driving) and crashed it. The boat didn’t sink and Adam didn’t drown. The boat got stuck in some seaweed and Adam swam back to shore. Adam made a similar jump the time that he left behind his life in Milwaukee and ran away to Baltimore with Stephanie Barber, who is awesome (like Christianity, but in a different way). The experience was panicked and great. Another time, Adam was attacked while waiting for the bus and hit over the head with a bottle, but the attackers escaped with nothing of Adam's and Adam ended up with a bloody story to tell. One thing that should be learned from this: You cannot stop Adam Robinson. Also, it should be noted that the farthest Adam has walked at one time is 28 miles and the farthest he has ridden a bicycle is 34 miles. He could go farther, though. He will go farther. In fact, there he goes now.